The Rotary Club of Busan Tongbaek is one of only two Rotary Clubs in South Korea with a genuine multi-citizen membership and who's proceeding are conducted wholly in English. The club membership includes both Korean nationals and Foreign nationals from many countries including America, Brazil, India, Germany, Norway and the UK.

As part of Rotary International District 3660 (Area 13), we received our charter on 19th October 1989, see below. Since then, the club has gone from strength to strength with a rather dynamic membership fluctuating around 35 people.

As the only multi-citizen club in Busan (the second largest city in South Korea), the club forms an important bridge to other overseas clubs and has established sister club relationships in New Zealand (Christchurch South RC) and we remain active to expand out international links further.

Brief History of the Rotary Club of Busan Tongbaek

A cursory community survey was made by Mr. Kim, Tae-Chul for possible formation of an English speaking Rotary Club in March 1989. Through personal contact with a number of prospective members, a skeleton framework was set up in April 1989 and included key members including Prof. Jung Hun; Mr. Shil Keun Jun; Mr. Donhauser; Mr. Kelly; Mr. R Petersen and others.

The first Club meeting was held in May 1989 at the Westin Chosun Beach Hotel with some 30 prospective members attending. The organisation meeting was held in August 1989 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel (now the Marriott), see the Club Organisation Meeting Program. This meeting was attended by 42 charter members under the sponsorship of the Pusan Rotary Club, Mr. Tae-Chul Kim acting as the Governor's special representative.

The Club Constitution, Club Bye Laws and Rotary Club of Busan Tongbaek name were adopted by election and the following members were elected to serve as club officers for the 1989-90 Rotary year.

Our club was officially admitted to membership of Rotary International on 19th October 1989.

Since then the Rotary Club of Busan Tongbaek has been functioning very effectively as a unique English-speaking Rotary Club in the Busan area and has offered an effective outlet for our Korean and Foreign members to broaden their social and business contacts with many business and community leader in the Busan area.

Thanks to the multi-national English-speaking nature of our Rotary Club, we enjoy an excellent weekly program with a number of dignitaries serving as guest speakers. We continue to actively seeking new Korean and Foreign members and further information on the following link if you want to join us. For further information please contact us.

Note.

The recently adopted policy in Korea has been to change some of the previous letter references when converting Korean in to English. The confusion arose when recognising that the Korean alphabet has the same sound/character reference for more than one English letter, for example P & B are represented by the same Korean character. In consequence, the city name reference of Pusan has been changed to Busan and has been adopted throughout this website. It should be noted that the original charter of the Rotary Club of Busan Tongbaek, included Busan in the name (not Pusan). This shows considerable foresight of the Club's Board of Directors at that time.

In other Korean Rotary Club references, the Pusan reference may be correct and apologies are given here for any discrepancies that arise. If corrections are required please contact the Rotary Club of Busan Tongbaek Webmaster using the e-mail link on the contact us page.